Week in Review

Obamacare is not going well. The say it is. But it isn’t. The White House can all of a sudden give us a number like 8 million enrollees when they said earlier they couldn’t tell until the insurance companies tell them. And the other big question is this. Are these enrollees? Including all people who enrolled whether they paid or not? Or are these only the people who paid? Or are most of these people enrolling in Medicaid? Those who won’t ever pay? If that 8 million aren’t paying customers Obamacare is doomed.

So the financial foundation of Obamacare is likely very perilous. Where the sick and poor are probably signing up more than the healthy with money. And the delay of the employer mandate to sometime after the midterm election takes a bad financial foundation and makes it worse. For they can’t keep delaying the funding parts until after elections. Because someone has to pay for all of the subsidies. As well as the high cost of the old and sick. Which alone may bankrupt Obamacare (see Labour considers raising national insurance to fix £30bn NHS ‘black hole’ by Toby Helm posted 4/19/2014 on the guardian).

Radical plans to increase national insurance contributions to plug a looming £30bn a year “black hole” in NHS funding and pay the spiralling costs of care for the elderly are being examined by Labour’s policy review.

The Observer has learnt that the idea is among options being considered to ensure NHS and care costs can be met under a future Labour government, without it having to impose crippling cuts on other services in successive budgets.

Senior party figures have confirmed that a scheme advanced by the former Labour minister Frank Field – under which funds from increased NI would be paid into a sealed-off fund for health and care costs – is being examined, though no decisions have been taken.

Recent figures based on data from NHS England and the Nuffield Trust and produced by the Commons library suggest that NHS costs alone will go from £95bn a year now to more than £130bn a year by 2020.

Some have suggested that they designed Obamacare to fail. So they can get what they really want. Single-payer. Or national health care. Like they have in Britain with their National Health Service (NHS). Which is running an enormous deficit. Based on the above numbers it currently is 31.6% (£30bn/£95bn). Which is just unsustainable. But this is what an aging population will do. When you have more people leaving the workforce consuming health care benefits paid for by fewer people entering the workforce. Which should be a huge warning for the United States. Because they have an aging population, too.

At the current exchange rate that £30 billion comes to $50.37 billion. Is this what the US can expect? No. Because they have five-times the population Britain has. So their deficit will be approximately five-times as big. Or $251.85 billion. That’s a quarter of a trillion dollar shortfall PER YEAR. At least. And $2.52 trillion over a decade. So unless the Americans can somehow make their people less sick so they won’t consume health care resources the deficit alone for Obamacare will be more than twice the original CBO projection for the total cost over 10 years. Which means the Americans will have to do what the British must do. Increase taxes. Charge for some health care services in addition to these higher taxes. Or impose crippling cuts to services. Hello rationing. And longer wait times.

This is the absolute worst time to impose a single-payer/national health care system. Just as the baby boom generation fills our health care system in their retirement. It might have worked if we had kept having babies the way we did before birth control and abortion slashed the birthrate. But we didn’t. And now we have a baby bust generation stuck footing the bill for a baby boom generation. Fewer paying for more. And the only way to make that work is with confiscatory tax rates. Or death panels. Because you have to raise revenue. Or cut costs. There is just no other option. Or people can work longer, pay out of pocket for routine, expected expenses and buy real insurance to protect themselves from catastrophic, unexpected medical expenses. Which is actually another option. And probably the only one that will work.

Week in Review

It’s no secret that the Democrats benefit by having an ignorant electorate. People who don’t know history or understand economics will more easily fall for their lies. Especially when they victimize their base and demonize the opposition. Republicans. It’s a winning formula. And it has won President Obama reelection. Despite all the warnings from those who know history and understand economics. Who warned us about what Obamacare was going to do to us. And the urgency of repealing it before it became too entrenched. But the naysayers said nay. Uh-uh. And your mother is a whore. Demonizing the opposition with abandon. And laughing at the snarky little jabs on late-night television. Of course it’s different now. As the young and healthy have learned that the Affordable Care Act was predicated on their paying the health care tab for the old and sick.

So Obamacare care went from the fair and just Affordable Care Act to the unfair and unaffordable care act. Stunned by push back from their normally useful exploitable base the Obama administration pushed back against the pushback. Warning the Millenials that they risked not being cool if they didn’t buy health insurance (see Obama’s pathetic pitch to millennials by David Pasch posted 2/14/2014 on the New York Post).

How do you market the Affordable Care Act to Millennials? If you’ve got a good answer, tell the White House right away. It’s tried everything to get us to sign up for health insurance on the federal exchanges — and most of its attempts have been off-tune, off-putting, or just downright dumb.

The latest effort involves former NBA star Magic Johnson. Sorry: While Johnson commands respect for his athletic and personal achievements, he’s the not the best candidate to market anything to Millennials. He retired in 1991. Anyone under 23 never even saw him pick up a basketball.

There’s also the “Brosurance” debacle…

The ads depict Millennials as idiots and floozies. One ad shows college kids doing keg stands; another shows a couple about to hook up, with the tag: “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control…”

Other campaigns have been weird, sad or both. One print ad urged us to go to healthcare.gov by telling us that “Mom loves her comfy jeans.” So did that kid in college who played World of Warcraft, but he never made me want to buy health insurance. Then there’s the “pajama boy” campaign, which convinced anyone over 30 that Millennials are insufferable. And another ad targets women with a not-so-catchy tune sung by cats and dogs…

To be fair, Millennials aren’t always laughing at the administration’s ads. Sometimes we’re laughing with them — when they feature celebrities and comedians who we’ve actually heard of, like Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman or Will Ferrell.

But the real joke is on us. ObamaCare just isn’t a good deal for my generation.

The problems start with how much plans cost. Insurance rates have skyrocketed for Millennials since the exchanges opened in October. According to the Manhattan Institute, the average 27-year-old man is facing a 97 percent premium hike and the average 27-year old woman a 55 percent increase.

It is hard to believe that these are the same people who put a campaign together that defeated Mitt Romney during the worst economic recovery since that following the Great Depression. And the incompetence and cover-up of Benghazi (it was a spontaneous uprising by people angered over a YouTube video who pulled pre-sighted mortars from their back pockets). One wonders how you go from the 2012 campaign to “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control” and “Mom loves her comfy jeans.” I just don’t see these influencing the electorate to vote Democrat.

Why is the premium hike for men almost twice what it is for women? Because the Affordable Care Act now forces men to buy insurance to cover a reproductive system they don’t have. For in the name of fairness women can no longer be charged more than men for health insurance. So they charge men more. It doesn’t lower the cost of women’s health insurance though. For it is still rising 55%. So where is all that money going? To pay for the old and sick.

The Democrats believe Millenials are idiots and floozies. For they have worked tirelessly to dumb down our public schools and higher education. So they can more easily lie to those they think of as idiots and floozies. It’s as if you can hear them say, “Look, we gave you free birth control. Isn’t that worth an extra car payment a month?” Based on the enrollment numbers of the Millenials, apparently not.

Week in Review

The roll out of the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) has given us a plethora of unintended consequences. From freezing new hiring. To pushing full-time workers into part-time. To people losing the health insurance and doctor they liked and wanted to keep. To higher insurance premiums. To higher deductibles. To higher co-pays. Taking a health care system that the vast majority of people were satisfied with and making it worse. To accommodate a small percentage of the population who were uninsured. If that wasn’t bad enough it doesn’t even look like some of the people who signed up for Obamacare are paying their insurance premiums (see Next problem for Obamacare: deadbeat enrollees by Rick Newman posted 2/14/2014 on Yahoo! Finance).

The New York Times has discovered that only about 80% of people purchasing health insurance through the federal online marketplace or a similar state-run exchange paid their first month’s premium. There’s no single source of such data, but the Times canvassed insurers participating in the program, such as Aetna (AET), Wellpoint (WLP), Humana (HUM) and Blue Shield of California. All said that the first-month payment rate ranged from 75% to 80% or so, far lower than for typical plans. If enrollees don’t pay the first month’s premium, their insurance never goes into effect.

That doesn’t mean, however, that one-fifth of the people signing up for Obamacare are blatantly refusing to pay. Technical problems with some of the exchange websites may have left people enrolled in an insurance plan without knowing it. Some may never have received a bill or confirmation of their enrollment. Others may have unwittingly signed up for two different policies, while paying for only one.

To make the Affordable Care Act work required a huge health care cost transfer from the old and sick to the young and healthy. The young and healthy, incidentally, made up a sizeable portion of the uninsured. Because they were young and healthy and felt invincible. And invincible people don’t need to buy insurance. So Obamacare needed the individual mandate to force these people to buy insurance against their will so they could pay for the old and sick.

Of course when they raised the price of health insurance to cover pre-existing conditions it wasn’t the young and healthy that ran to the Obamacare exchanges. It was the old and sick. Adding too many old and sick to the insurance pool. And not enough of the young and healthy. Those who would pay without consuming any benefits. Because they are young and healthy. Causing the insurers to pay more out in benefits than they receive in premiums. Forcing them to raise their premiums. Which will, of course, kick off the death spiral as people drop out because they can’t afford those higher rates. Which will, in turn, force the insurers to raise their rates again. Hence the death spiral. And as bad as all of that was now it looks like about 20-25% of those who ‘signed up’ either didn’t or are simply choosing not to pay. Making the financial predicament of the insurers far worse.

Of course if your plan was to force single-payer (i.e., national health care) onto the people against their will then everything is going according to plan to destroy the private insurance market. Leaving only the government to step in and provide single-payer (i.e., national health care). Which should fill everyone with confidence after seeing how well they rolled out the Affordable Care Act. And no doubt will impress us even more with the rollout of single-payer (i.e., national health care).

Fundamental Truth

The Scam of the Ponzi Scheme is that there is no Investment

A Ponzi scheme is a pyramid scheme. An investment scam. Here’s how it works. Say three scammers build an investment fund that they promise will return an 18% return on investment. A pretty good return these days. If they have 100 investors who invest $25,000 each that brings in $2.5 million into the investment fund. Now here’s where the scam comes in.

They pay each investor an 18% return each year. So their $25,000 returns $4,500. A return they can’t get anywhere else. An investment just too good to be true. Some take that $4,500 check and spend it on something special for themselves. Others leave it in the fund. While others beg to get into the fund. Of course they wouldn’t do these things if they understood what happened to the $2.125 million that the fund didn’t pay out to investors. That went into the pockets of the three scammers.

That’s the scam of the Ponzi scheme. There is no investment. The scammers collect the money people invest. Put aside some money to pay out as a generous return on investment. While keeping the rest. These scammers sit on top of the pyramid. And the more people that join the investment fund the wider the base of the pyramid gets. Pouring more money into the scam. Providing more money to pay out even higher returns on investments. Getter ever more people begging to get into the fund. While burying the scammers under an avalanche of cash.

Our Aging Population is sending the Health Insurance Industry into a Death Spiral

All Ponzi schemes share these characteristics. And one other one. They all fail. And the scammers go to jail. Why? Simple. The scam works as long as the base of the pyramid continues to grow greater than the top of the pyramid. As the base grows larger the scammers spend more money, though. Because there is more money to spend. And spend they do. Putting down deposits and paying on large mortgages and loans. Buying very costly things that have a voracious appetite for cash. So over time more money flows out at the top of the pyramid. Which isn’t a problem until money stops flowing into the bottom of the pyramid. Or begins to flow out. Because people want to use their money for something else. Like for a down payment on a house. And once the money flowing out of the bottom of the pyramid exceeds the ‘return’ on investment the fund pays those high returns on investments shrink and disappear. Exposing the scam.

This is what has happened to Social Security and Medicare. Thanks to an aging population. Women are having fewer babies than they did during the baby boom generation. So today we have fewer taxpayers entering the workforce who pay the taxes that pay for Social Security and Medicare. While the baby boomers are retiring and leaving the workforce. And living longer into retirement. Consuming far more money than they ever paid into these entitlement programs. So there is far more money flowing out of the top of the pyramid than is flowing into the bottom. Inverting the pyramid. And putting these programs onto the path to bankruptcy.

Health insurance is little different. It just covers so much these days that insurance premiums have soared to pay for this ever expanding coverage. And the aging population just makes a horrible situation worse. The elderly are living longer and consuming the lion’s share of health care services. Further raising the cost of health insurance. Making it unaffordable to many. So people simply choose not to buy it in their youth when they are young and healthy. And wait to buy it later in life when they need it. Such as when they start raising a family. At which time they’ll try to find employment somewhere that has good health insurance. When they start consuming health care services. Creating adverse selection. Where only those who consume health care services buy health insurance. While those who don’t consume health care services (i.e., the young and healthy) don’t. Creating a death spiral. As there are no non-consumers of health care services subsidizing the high cost of the large consumers of health care services. So premiums rise. To allow fewer people pay for more. More people drop their insurance because they can no longer afford it. Shrinking the insurance pool. So premiums rise. To allow fewer people pay for more. More people drop their insurance because they can no longer afford it. And so on until the cost of health insurance equals the cost of the health care services. And the insurance market goes the way of every Ponzi scheme before it.

When Reality hits People in the Pocketbook they tend to Lose their Idealism

Enter the Affordable Care Act and the mandates. Forcing the young and healthy to buy insurance they won’t use. So they can use their premiums to pay for the old and sick. The greatest generational theft in history. Something the young and healthy see. And don’t like. For they are not running out and buying health insurance on the health exchanges. In fact the majority of the people to enroll thus far are the high consumers of health care services. Which is basically the opposite of the goal of Obamacare. The young and healthy may have supported President Obama and the Affordable Care Act but that was only in generalities. Yes, we should help those who don’t have insurance. And, yes, we should do something to save the environment. We should stop discriminating against the LGBT community and let them get married. In the abstract these are all noble goals. But when the reality hits their pocketbook then it’s no longer an abstract thing to feel good about. Especially when they can’t get a job with their college education because they had the misfortune to enter the workforce during the worst economic recovery since that following the Great Depression. The Obama recovery.

This is when youthful idealism turns into skepticism. As reality settles in hard. This isn’t raising taxes on the rich. Something they won’t have to deal with until much later in their career. This is in the here and now. When they stop hearing inspiring words from the president about what we can do if only we implement his policies. But only hear B.S. and lies. For if they had that youthful idealism they would be rushing to the health exchanges to buy health insurance to make the world a better place. But they’re not. And this has the left worried. Not just about trying to fix the broken Obamacare website. But will this skepticism spread to other items on their liberal agenda? Such as the fight against manmade global warming? They still want their carbon tax. And they’ve worked hard to get kids graduating from high school convinced that we’re destroying the planet and need to make polluters pay. If the young lose their faith on Obamacare they may just stop fearing global warming to the point that they may start driving big SUVs again.

In the abstract the youth will support many things. Until it starts hitting them in the pocketbook. And if we make the fight against global warming hit them in the pocketbook they would quickly become indifferent about manmade global warming. Even becoming manmade global warming skeptics. Perhaps even noting that the glaciers once stretched down from the poles to near the equator. And moved back towards the poles. Before there was any manmade global warming. Something that probably bothers them today but they’re not yet ready to question the left about manmade global warming. But if we made them buy insurance to protect themselves from the ravishes of global warming they probably would. The prognosticators can run off a list of calamities that will befall us from unchecked global warming. So actuaries should be able to put a cost on that. And set insurance premiums to cover the cost when the calamities of manmade global warming hit us. Putting these premiums into a Save the Planet from Manmade Global Warming Trust Fund. Just like the Social Security Trust Fund that has nothing in it but government IOUs. Let the youth start paying a monthly premium to save us from manmade global warming and see how soon they become global warming deniers. If we did this global warming insurance would probably sell as well as Obamacare. Because when reality hits people in the pocketbook they tend to lose their idealism. And this is the biggest fear the left has. Because they count on that youthful idealism to win elections. For once people lose their idealism they tend to vote Republican.

Politics 101

President Obama Habitually breaks Every Promise he makes and Suffers no Consequences

President Obama made a promise to Americans as he stumped for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). He said if you like your insurance plan you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. And even those people who did like and want to keep their insurance and doctor would benefit under Obamacare. Because they would get more for less. If you do a search on YouTube you can see all sorts of videos where you can hear President Obama make these very promises. Like this one.

The president was adamant. He made these promises over and over. Nothing in his plan would change anything for those happy with what they had. Period. He said that a lot. Period. These weren’t mere political promises that we expect to be broken as usual. This was a solemn oath from President Obama. And we could take that to the bank. Well, it turns out the American people couldn’t take that to the bank. For he broke every promise he made.

George Herbert Walker Bush became a one-term president because he said, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” And then he made a deal with devious Democrats to raise taxes in exchange for spending cuts. Spending cuts that never came. Bush broke one promise and it ended his political career. While President Obama habitually breaks every promise he makes and suffers no consequences. At least not yet. But that may change.

Hackers will call the Obamacare Database the Mother Lode when it comes to Hacking

This week the reality of the ObamaCare roll-out appeared in a set of news stories that serve as an ironic juxtaposition. Over 500,000 individuals have seen their insurance policies cancelled in just 3 states. In all 50 states, only 476,000 applications have been “filed” in an exchange. (Even though we are still learning the true definition of “filed.”)…

As I have tracked enrollment by states, many are reporting out both Medicaid and exchange enrollment at the same time.

Therefore the 476,000 number is misleading. My best guess is that for the 17 states that have reported out some data, the number is closer to 193,818 applications (once you pull out the Medicaid applications that have been reported on). Of course, this number is also still too high as it is compromised by the jointly reported data.

People are losing the insurance they like because to keep it requires more than they can afford. For Obamacare has made the insurance they liked and wanted to keep much more expensive (see Obamacare deductibles a dose of sticker shock by Peter Frost posted 10/13/2013 on the Chicago Tribune).

Many Illinoisans buying health coverage on their own next year will face a similar dilemma spurred by the health care overhaul: pay higher monthly insurance premiums or run the risk of having to shell out thousands more in deductibles for health care if they get sick.

To promote the Oct. 1 debut of the exchanges, the online marketplaces where consumers can shop and buy insurance, Obama administration and Illinois officials touted the lower-than-expected monthly premiums that would make insurance more affordable for millions of Americans. But a Tribune analysis shows that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered on the Illinois health insurance exchange for Cook County have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage…

Plans with the least expensive monthly premiums — highlighted by state and federal officials as proof the new law will keep costs low for consumers — have deductibles as high as $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families, the highest levels allowed under the law.

And then there’s the website. In an era where identity theft is running rampant where hackers can steal everything in your smartphone while sipping a coffee at Starbucks we are asked to enter all our personal and identifying information into this website. And after they collect it they will store it in one massive database. Or as that hacker in Starbucks would call it, the mother lode. A hacker’s paradise. So is our personal and identifying information safe? It doesn’t matter. For the government has written in the code that by entering our data we acknowledge that we have no expectation of privacy (see Obamacare Website Source Code: ‘No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy’ by JERYL BIER posted 10/14/2013 on The Weekly Standard).

The launch of federal government’s Obamacare insurance exchange, Healthcare.gov, has been plagued with delays, errors, and poor website design, even prompting USA Today to call it an “inexcusable mess” and a “nightmare”. Now comes another example of why the website’s reputation is in tatters. Buried in the source code of Healthcare.gov is this sentence that could prove embarrassing: “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.” Though not visible to users and obviously not intended as part of the terms and conditions, the language is nevertheless a part of the underlying code for the “Terms & Conditions” page on the site…

The full portion of the code which does not appear on the visible page displayed for users reads as follows:

You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system. At any time, and for any lawful Government purpose, the government may monitor, intercept, and search and seize any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system. Any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system may be disclosed or used for any lawful Government purpose. [The sentence beginning “To continue” also appears again, but is only visible once on the page as displayed for users.]

Talk about your Big Brother. Once upon a time the Constitution required a warrant for the government to collect this information. Now it’s the price of health care. You want to live? Then you must sign away your Fourth Amendment Right.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Apparently the Obama administration has little regard for the U.S. Constitution. Funny how these same people railed against George W. Bush and the Patriot Act. And he was only wire-tapping international telephone calls to suspected terrorists. Not throwing a dragnet to see what useful information the government could collect on potential political enemies of the state. Which could be useful in the next election. Or to silence a critic.

The Taxpayer Bill for the Obamacare Website is $1 Billion and Counting

Proponents of national health care like to say the United States is the only advanced economy without national health care. But what they don’t say is that those countries they so admire have a mix of public and private. And those who can choose the private over the public whenever they can. Australia. The United Kingdom. Even Canada. And the name of the Canadian private network? The United States. Well, before Obamacare, at least. In fact, not only do patients travel across the border for the private American health care system. So do doctors and nurses. In search of a decent wage. For in Canada they have little choice but to accept what the Canadian government pays them. However little that is.

The lynchpin of Obamacare is getting young, healthy people to buy health insurance policies. Who will only pay into the system. For being young and healthy they won’t consume any health care resources. So the young and healthy can pay for the old and sick. And with an aging population, the old and sick outnumber the young and healthy. So the young and healthy will be paying high premiums and high deductibles. Just as is happening. While families will pay even more. And just as they are paying more for their now mandatory health insurance their household incomes are falling. Employers are pushing full-time workers to part-time. Laying off workers to have less than 30 on the payroll. And they’re not hiring anyone to keep from having 30 workers on the payroll. All because of Obamacare. So the 10 million or so workers who left the labor force since President Obama assumed office won’t be going back to work any time soon.

Although the Affordable Care Act has been law for three and a half years, one third of the funds going to the top contractors working on the federal exchanges were awarded in the six months before the new insurance marketplaces opened Oct. 1, a Bloomberg Government Analysis has found. The torrent of late spending — almost $352 million of $1 billion in awards to the top 10 contractors — indicates the magnitude of the work still to be done as opening day approached, and helps explain the information technology problems that have dogged the exchange system since its launch.

$1 billion for a website. And one that doesn’t work. Imagine that. But in the grand scheme of things this will still be the least costly part of the Affordable Care Act. And we’ll look back to these days as the good old days of Obamacare. Because it is horrible now. And it will only get worse. The Republicans knew this which is why none of them voted for it. The Democrats knew it, too, but they didn’t care. Because for them Obamacare is not about health care. It’s about acquiring power. Sadly, they were able to win this political contest. Because they are better at lying than the Republicans are at telling the truth.

Economics 101

For Health Insurance to work More People need to Pay Into the Pool than Collect from the Pool

It’s here. Obamacare. Which promises to give more people health insurance. With health insurance policies paying for more than policies do now. More tests. More procedures. Even birth control. Obamacare will also provide coverage for people with preexisting conditions. Remove caps on benefits and forbid insurance companies from cancelling insurance coverage. Forcing insurance companies to give policy holders a lot more benefits. All while reducing insurance premiums. Which seems to defy common sense. Getting more while paying less. To better understand this let’s look at a sample insurance pool.

Insurance pools are larger than 10 policy holders but this will suffice for this example. In this example there are 5 individual policy holders with a monthly insurance premium averaging $118. There are 4 family policies with a monthly insurance premium averaging $400. And one policy holder with a chronic health condition who pays a premium that people with preexisting conditions pay. In this example paying $1,200 a month. It’s that high because this person requires medical care in excess of $30,000 each year. The average of all premiums is $339.

Now, this is how insurance works. There is a pool. People in the pool each pay a small premium compared to the medical costs they MIGHT incur. The word ‘MIGHT’ is key here. For insurance to work more people need to pay into the pool than collect from the pool. This allows the pool to pay the few who have a large unexpected medical expense. If the insurance company’s actuaries get their premiums right the total of premiums paid into the pool approximately equals the total of expenses paid by the pool. So premiums in basically equal payments out. Premiums in can exceed payments out. But payments out cannot exceed premiums in or else the insurance company will go bankrupt.

Obamacare will Increase the Price of Health Insurance for Men because Insurers can’t Charge more for Women

Obamacare’s individual mandate is an attempt to make sure premiums in exceed payments out. By forcing more young and healthy people who will not use health insurance pay into the pool. Young and healthy, see, is the key. Because that’s money they can spend on other people. So the young and healthy are the answer to the high cost of the old and sick. So Obamacare, then, is basically a cost transfer from the old and sick to the young and healthy. And it will work to lower the cost of health insurance. If the young and healthy buy health insurance and never use it.

If we add 12 young and healthy people to the pool who will not use the insurance the premiums become more affordable. When there were only 10 people in the pool the total premiums added up to $3,390. By adding these 12 young and healthy to the pool the total premiums paid in increases to $4,000. An increase of 26.3%. So if we discount all premiums by 26.9% we still get a total of $3,390 paid in. Which is how Obamacare is supposed to lower the cost of health insurance. By forcing people who won’t use it to buy it. So they can pay for the people who do use it. Thus lowering the average premium to $154.09. And bringing down the premiums for single, family and preexisting conditions to $78.03, $294.78 and $884.35, respectively. Lowering price across the board. Making everyone happy. Except, of course, those forced to buy something they won’t use. So this part can lower insurance costs. But it won’t. Because Obamacare complicates things.

Obamacare will raise premiums because it requires insurers to cover more. In addition to the things already noted there are some other costly requirements. Such as the ban on price discrimination based on sex. Meaning insurers can no longer charge women more for health insurance. Even though women are more costly to insure. Primarily due to their reproductive systems. And other biological differences. If they can’t charge more for women then they must charge women what they charge men. And to cover the higher costs of insuring women they must charge men a higher premium. So when they charge women that premium it will cover birth control, breast exams, pap smears, etc. In our example we assume singles and families will pay twice as much. While those paying preexisting conditions premiums will pay 50% more. Bringing the average premium to $288.08. While bringing the premiums for single, family and preexisting conditions to $156.06, $589.57 and $1,326.52, respectively.

The Key to Obamacare is to get more Young and Healthy People to buy Insurance that they will Not Use

But premiums will cost even more. Because insurers cannot deny coverage for people with preexisting conditions. And they can’t cancel coverage for people if they come down with a very costly chronic health problem. Basically meaning there is no cap to what an insurer may pay on an individual. Which makes the insurance equation more difficult to balance. Making sure that payments out do not exceed premiums in. Which is more difficult to do when there is no limit to what those payments out can be. So insurers will have little choice but to charge people for the worst case scenario. That a large percentage in the pool will have long-term chronic illnesses. And that some people will be buying insurance for the first time after being diagnosed with a long-term chronic illness.

Insurers will have to make assumptions. With no limit to their high-end exposure they will have to charge everyone more across the board. So they will have to take their greatest risk—the exposure to preexisting conditions and long-term chronic illnesses—and factor that into all premiums. In our example we charged singles 25% of the greatest risk. And we charged families 50% of the greatest risk (the more people on the policy the greater the risk of long-term chronic illnesses on that policy). Raising the average premium to $437. And raising the premiums for single, family and preexisting conditions to $331.63, $663.26 and $1,326.52, respectively. Or an increase of 181%, 66% and 11%, respectively from before the implementation of Obamacare.

Obamacare seems like a windfall to the insurance companies. Which is why some of them supported Obamacare. But the key to Obamacare was to get more young and healthy people to pay into the insurance pool while not using that insurance. The young and the healthy. Individuals. Who don’t have families. Those who will see a substantial rise in their insurance premiums. As much as 181%? Perhaps. But if the increase is too great for these young and healthy individuals to afford they will not buy health insurance. And they can’t get a subsidy. Because it’s the young and healthy—those who are supposed to pay into the insurance pool without using their insurance—who are to provide the money for the subsidies. So they won’t increase the amount of premiums going into the pool. While the additional requirements of Obamacare will increase the payments going out of the pool. Causing the insurance equation to go out of balance. Putting the private health insurance business out of business. The ultimate goal of Obamacare. So the left can get what they wanted all along. National health care.